I have been reading and thinking about wisdom in the classical and Christian traditions. If wisdom and virtue are the ultimate aims of education, which I believe they are, do we understand the implications? What do we need to understand about the nature of wisdom and virtue to lead and teach well?
This book (linked below) and Michael Legaspi’s Wisdom in Classical and Biblical Tradition, have been very insightful. Remi Brague’s foreword to Karlowicz’s text is especially thought provoking. He says, “The Socratic model of constant enquiry is very nice, but it precludes from the possibility that the Truth is given.” Brague mentions Gotthold Lessing’s parable in which the choice is between truth and the search for truth. Lessing contended that “we human beings should choose enquiry over the Truth, for the latter is God’s privilege.”
Lessing says, “If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.”
What are your thoughts? Do we have to choose between truth and the search for it? Does the Socratic method assume certain things about the search and nature of truth? Should we be discussing these questions with our faculty and students? How does a biblical understanding of wisdom address this issue?
